Study: Mysterious Bursts From Space Occur Every Second

The Parkes radio telescope “heard” the first fast radio burst in 2001. Could bursts actually be going off every second? (Credit: CSIRO) Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are one of the hottest topics in astronomy right now. These short but extremely powerful bursts last only milliseconds, but release tremendous amounts of energy during that minute period of time. Since publication of their initial discovery in 2007 (the burst itself occurred in 2001), just over 25 of these sources have been identified, with only one repeater. But now, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomers have estimated that despite only the handful of FRBs in our current records, such events could be occurring as often as once per second. Anastasia Fialkov and Avi Loeb published their findings September 10 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The title says it all: “A Fast Radio Burst Occurs Every Second throughout the Observable Universe.” Their work is based ...